Essential to promoting high participation with high standards in educational athletics is not only maintaining but expanding training for those who are in charge of and care for our programs.  This means continuing education for our four core constituents. 

The ranks of athletic directors have been greatly diminished because of the economic pressures on school districts.  Those who remain have less time to do their job and, in many cases, less training to do it with.  Because of this, the Michigan High School Athletic Association and the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association need to respond with basic training – a kind of boot camp – practical, day-to-day stuff.  That’s the focus of the MHSAA’s new Athletic Director Orientation in August and the Athletic Director In-Service programs conducted around the state during August and October.  For the schedule, visit the Administrators Page and go to "In-Services, Education, Programming."

The second core constituents are our coaches; and we need the expectation that every coach, every year, completes one or more levels of the MHSAA Coaches’ Advancement Program and, in addition, maintains current training in CPR and AED.  Educational athletics demands educated coaches; but this doesn’t necessarily mean a college degree.  It means persons who are actively engaged in ongoing training and staying abreast of the best practices in coaching adolescent boys and girls.  For more on CAP, click here.

Our third core constituents are officials, and the MHSAA’s efforts for the near future will have components of both high touch and high tech.  We’ll have more camps in basketball and then camps in many other sports.  These are intended to be inexpensive and focused on inexperienced officials so that we can help them be successful in their early years, and thus give us many years of good service.

The high tech component of our officials education thrusts of the near future include online video training, first in fall sports and then in all sports; and online mechanics manuals that can be downloaded for the convenience of officials.  Visit the Officials Page to view the video clips and mechanics manuals for football (posted), and basketball, baseball and softball as the seasons approach.

The fourth key constituents in our programming are student-athletes, and especially team captains.  We still have the Team Captains Guidebook, authored by our Student Advisory Council, available for schools and school districts to utilize with their captains and coaches.  MHSAA staff members are also available to plan and conduct Captains Clinics for leagues and conferences. Follow the Students Page for updates and resources.